Word count: 490
The best part about the heat wave is that no one is on the beach, even as the sun begins to rise. It's not surprising. The morning is so hot that the sand beneath her bare feet feels like flames burning her skin. Andromeda winces, regretting her decision to leave her shoes behind.
"Perfect," Ted decides, laying out a beach towel. He adjusts the umbrella and sits, gesturing for Andromeda to join him.
She follows, stretching out her long legs. The sky is brilliant with its red and orange streaks combatting the darkness as night retreats. "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," she whispers.
Ted chuckles. "So why do you look so guilty?"
Andromeda bites her lip. For several seconds, she's silent, unsure of how to explain it. Finally, she sighs and shakes her head. "This is pretty major," she points out. "Stealing moments at Hogwarts is one thing. But this?"
Her mother will wake soon and find that Andromeda isn't in her bed. Her father will yell and rage. Maybe Narcissa will suspect where Andromeda is. Will she tell? The two have never been terribly close, not like Andromeda and Bellatrix.
"Sugar Quill?"
She almost laughs. This is just another day for him. Of course Ted can sit there, enjoying his favorite sweet, unaware of how serious it all is.
"I'm a bloody coward," she says, and she accepts the Sugar Quill. "I love you, but I'm terrified of what my family will say."
Ted leans in, wrapping an arm around her. "I don't think you're a coward. You just grew up thinking people like us couldn't live in harmony," he says. "Never, in a million years, would you have imagined that we could fall in love."
But she had. Andromeda thinks she might have loved Ted long before they had ever spoken to her. She had seen him in the corridors, and her imagination had run wild. Before they had even met, she had pictured a future together.
"What if it didn't have to be a dream?" he asks. "What if you and I could just come to the beach, enjoy the weather, and it not have to worry about anything else?"
She almost laughs. It's nice to think about, but it's impossible. This is her life, like it or not. She has to do what is expected.
Except maybe she doesn't. Maybe she can find a way to do something more. She's dreamt of finding her own path, of living her own life. Is it possible that she can do that now?
"It could be you and me forever," he adds.
The word should scare her. Forever is a long time, but maybe that's okay. Maybe she wouldn't mind spending it with him.
"Are you asking me to marry you?" Andromeda whispers.
"Yes. Will you?"
No more imagining it. No more fantasies about a future. Now is the time to live it.
"I will."